The applicant has developed an apparatus which is able to laminate plots that are outputted by a printing device, in a continuous operation. A media, such as a continuous web of paper, is printed in a printing device and then may be fed to an integrated laminator device so that at least some of the printed plots are laminated.
In such an apparatus it is advisable to avoid the need of lengthy user intervention, for example at the beginning of the printing operation on a fresh web or reel of media, especially when the apparatus is intended for professional use.
Moreover, it is of course advisable to minimize defects in the printed and laminated plots, for example defects in lamination due to skew of the media in the laminator device, and to avoid media waste.
These requirements are especially significant in the case of large format apparatus, i.e. apparatus which are able to work with media widths of 600 mm (24 inches) or more: on one hand, the length of the printed plots and the speed of the printer implies that a significant time lapses between the moment in which printing is started and the moment in which the first plot may be fed to the laminator, and the user would need to wait during this time to feed the media manually to the laminator; on the other hand, media behaviour makes it difficult to obtain good results when handling the media manually, for example at the input of the laminator.